I’m very much in the same boat. Much of the discussion I’ve had on the topic in the past has centered around how they were thrust into a weird and fucked up geopolitical situation as a direct fallout of the Holocaust and one of the final gasps of overt British colonialism… but these days, it’s WAY harder to use those facts as an excuse anymore (as in: the behavior of the Israeli government has gone so far beyond pragmatic defensive measures that could be reasonably appropriate to that context, to the point that it now looks and feels deeply hypocritical with regards to how things started for Israel in the first place).

That is my own experience as well. It took a while, but my eyes started to open in similar ways. Thank you for taking the time and putting words to it; you're braver than I am to do so.

The only thing I would add is that Trump has gone out of his way to inflame differences, like in his first term when he moved the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem knowing it would reignite what had long been settled by truce: something like 50 people died the day it opened. And that wasn't the only thing; I'm just going off the top of my head. It's been thousands of small and large insults, aggressions, injustices directed at the Palestinians all along. And now look at what it's become. I can't even begin to imagine the pain of the Palestinian people.

For me anymore, it's not even just about Israel. It's about the utter corruption of both Bibi and Trump, and for me personally, a suspicion I can't kick that they and a few others literally planned this genocide together so as to make a couple miles of highly-desirable waterfront property available for development. Last I heard, even Tony Blair was helping them plan it out.

So it makes sense now, to me anyway, why pro-Palestine protests and protesters have been met with such intense, personal, over-the-top hostility and even legislative action in both the UK and the US: it's because they were pointing directly at the large scale murder-theft of their people and land openly taking place before all our eyes and interrupting the age-old move along, nothing to see here charade put on by corrupt leaders only playacting at peace.

Yes, growing up the narrative was very much Israel is a heroic underdog valiantly fighting to exist while everyone else in the Middle East tries to destroy them with everything they have. And the US has to help them b/c Holocaust, Christianity, strategic military value, hand wave reasons.

Great post, speaks for a lot of us.

Israel was beset on all sides by people who wanted to destroy it, and it was a big shit show, and they did problematic stuff but that's what they had to do to stay alive because other nations wouldn't even acknowledge their right to exist.

This basically describes hamas in Gaza now.

There's a lot of parallels between Israel during the six day war and hamas during Oct 7. Both were surrounded by hostile country/s who would not recognize their right to exist and had an army ready to attack on their borders and were blockading them, though Israel was only being blockaded on one port. Then they launch a surprise attack on their neighbors. The difference is Israel succeeded and Hamas didn't.

Add to that that with Syria, the last external threat to Israel is gone. It's like Israeli politicians and the military still think Israel is the David threatened by a Goliath, when they have become the Goliath and their actions against civilians now look what a superior force does to a helpless victim.

Do you condemn the IDF for carrying out the Hannibal Directive and killing all those Israelis on October 7th?

Those without empathy and their abused victims.

That’s the 36% that still support Trump. I don’t know if they’re actually able to wake up. I kinda doubt it

Honestly I'd like to back a country and people a bit further north. That being the Armenia and the Kurds, upside is we can also piss off the Turks while being in the moral right.

European/Ashkenazi Jews make up 32% of Israeli Jews.

MENA/Mizrahi Jews are the largest group at 40-45%.